Yesterday was on the whole the most dissipated day yet passed in London. I was tired but had little time for repose, as I was constantly busy in preparing my usual letters for the week. With the exception of an hour from Mr Foster I sat my writing table until after five o’clock. Mr Foster’s tone seemed to me uneasy. There is evidently a little effort at reaction, occasioned by accounts of stoppage at Yorktown. The news however seems to me to continue favorable if foreign nations will only give us time. Two months of similar progress with the last two will settle it all. The only doubt is that the weak and wavering policy of this country will encourage hope to persevere in resistance just sufficient to complicate the issue. I have written home in this sense. We dined by invitation at the Duchess Dowager of Somersett’s. Lord Dalhousie, Lord Tullibardine, Mrs Buue, the Misses Osborne, the Duchess of Inurness, and several young men whose names I did not remember, After dinner came in M and Madame Musurus with several children and89 many other young people, who had music and a dance. This lady is a Scotch oddity with a good heart but not much head. She was overwhelmingly civil. And yet gave me a painful idea that I was not in my proper place receiving this empty adulation. The company was mostly Scotch, and without the best tone of breeding. Mrs Adams and my son Henry were with me. Mary had likewise been invited but we had decided to decline for her. The party contrasted strongly with all others I have seen in London in vivacity. Home at midnight.